Camping and woodcraft - Scoutmastercg.com

USE OF THE COMPASSbiIf a blaze is made merely on the outer bark, it willThis kind of blaze,not show so plainly by contrast.however, may be preferred for some purposes; forexample, by a trapper who does not want to calleverybody's attention to where his traps are set.bark-blaze has the peculiarity that itAlasts unaltered,to long as the bark itself endures, preserving itsOriginal outlines and distinctness, no matter howtnuch the tree may grow. But if a wound, howeverslight, be made through the bark into the sapwoodof the tree, so that the sap, which is the tree's blood,exudes, a healing process will at once set in, and theinjury, in time, will be covered over. So, as soonas a blaze is made that exposes the wood, the treebegins at once to cover up its scar. This is a slowprocess. First the edges of the cut will widen, thena sort of lip of smooth new inner bark will form,and this will gradually spread inward over the gash.Once this new skin has formed, the wound will becovered by new annual laj^ers of wood, as well as t)ynew outer bark. Years after the blaze was made,nothing will show on the surface but a slight scar,a sign that takes practised eyes to detect and read.A blaze always remains at its original height abovethe ground, and, where two or more spots have beencut in the same tree, they will always stand at thesame distance apart. This is because a tree increasesits height and girth only by building on top of theprevious growth, not by stretching it.Age of Blazes.—The age of a hack or blaze ina marked tree isdetermined by chopping out a billetof the wood containing the mark and counting theannular rings of growth from bottom of scar outward,allowing one year for each ring. In countingannular growth, some begin with the first soft lamina(porous part of year's growth), jumping the firsthard layer, to the second lamina, and so on. It ismore accurate to count the hard strata, for the followingreasons: Soft laminae are formed in thespring, when the sap is risine. If a hack is made